I thought the basis of the way MusicBrainz identifies tracks was
completely different from the way that Gracenote, FreeDB, and other
services worked. Wasn't the idea that even with no physical CD,
MusicBrainz would match the actual music content of your files against
their database? (I've never used MusicBrainz, so my statement might
not be accurate.) In the case of iTunes, Gracenote, and FreeDB, these
all use a "discid" for a physical CD that is calculated based on track
duration information stored in the Table of Contents for the CD,
encoded as a 32-bit number. That's usually enough to get a unique
fingerprint, but in some rare occasions you can get multiple IDs based
on this code. And this doesn't work for a CD that you burn, since the
track lengths won't be identical to a commercial, audio CD, unless you
are doing a direct copy.
The association with track tagging information in iTunes is based on
there being a physical CD inserted into the drive. iTunes stores this
information into a file named "CD Info.cidb" (without the quotation
marks) located on your computer. When you insert a CD into your
computer, iTunes tries to make the connection to Gracenote. (If it
doesn't succeed because you have no internet connection, your tracks
will simply come up as "Track 1", "Track 2", etc. and they will keep
those names until you edit and change them, or until you have a
connection with the CD in your drive, and choose "Get CD Track Names"
from the advanced menu.) You can read more about this in the Apple
Document on "How iTunes remembers audio CDs":
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA27785
The point is, programs like Audiobook builder and iTunes rely on there
being a physical audio CD with a Table-of-Contents and "unique" discid
being present in computer CD drive, and I think MusicBrainz works on a
different basis that only use the actual music content. But I don't
use MusicBrainz myself, so I could be mistaken in this.
HTH.
Cheers,
Esther
On Nov 16, 2008, at 9:57 PM, Jacob Schmude wrote:
Ok, fair enough. But programs like Audiobook builder can retrieve
the CD information from iTunes--like I said even the Finder can do
that. There is even a Max applescript to do it, though it is
outdated and doesn't work as expected anymore as Max no longer
supports some of the instructions it uses or they have been changed
significantly. This is not hidden iTunes functionality by any means.
So even if they can't use gracenote, they certainly can interface to
iTunes which does, and as iTunes provides this functionality openly
they cannot be charged for doing that. And then, of course, there is
always FreeDB, so being restricted to musicbrainz is kind of silly.
I've started using iTunes instead of Max to rip my CDs for this
reason, seeing as how I can't get it to retrieve CD information
anymore. It doesn't give me the full control I want but unless the
CD has some serious scratches it does a nice job.
On Nov 17, 2008, at 02:48, Esther wrote:
Hi Jacob,
You asked:
Hi I'm interested to know this as well. It's odd, the address
seems to have changed recently, the old information I have no
longer works. I don't know why they can't just use one of the
other CDDB's like freeDB or gracenote like iTunes does, as I
noticed musicbrainz being a bit short on content. If for some
reason they can't why not build in support for reading iTunes'
retrieved CD info? Even the Finder can do that!
If a service uses Gracenote, they have to pay for it. That's not
true for freeDB. But iTunes worked a special deal with Gracenote.
Cheers,
Esther
On Nov 17, 2008, at 00:24, David Truong wrote:
Hi All,
Can anyone tell me the music brains info I need to put in to max
ripper? At
the moment, I am not getting any CD info being retrieved and the
music
brains info in the max preferences are blank. Usually I thought
they would
have a default address there. Thanks for any help with this.
David Truong
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